André-Louis Moreau loves Aline de Kercadiou, the niece of his godfather, Quintin de Kercadiou, and she loves him as well. However, Quintin prefers she married the Marquis de la Tour d'Azyr, a middle-aged nobleman, rather than someone who does not even know who his parents are.
One day, expert swordsman de la Tour first toys with, then kills André's friend Philippe de Vilmorin in a duel. André turns to the king's lieutenant for justice. However, when the official learns who the accused is, he immediately orders André's arrest. André flees.
Meanwhile, France nears the brink of revolution. When one orator in favor of liberty and equality is shot and killed by a soldier, André fearlessly takes his place and remains undaunted when he is grazed by a bullet. When the dragoons are called to disperse the mob, an admirer named Chapelier helps André escape.
He joins a wandering theatre troupe led by Challefau Binet. André writes better plays for them to perform, and they become very successful, eventually performing at a theatre in Paris. André becomes engaged to Climène, Binet's daughter.
Aline and de la Tour attend a performance of his latest work, and she and André see each other. She goes to him, but he does not wish to renew their relationship. De la Tour, despite loving Aline, cannot help trifling with Climène. By chance, Aline and Countess de Plougastel, with whom she is staying, see him in a carriage with Climène. Aline informs de la Tour she never wants to see him again. De la Tour blackmails the countess into helping him, reminding her of an incident in her past.
Meanwhile, in the National Assembly, the aristocrats, unable to effectively respond to the reform-minded delegates with words, resort to duels to eliminate their leading opponents. Chief among the duelists is de la Tour. In desperation, Danton and Chapelier recruit André to reply in kind. The Chevalier de Chabrillone is his first victim. Eventually, he gets what he wants: a duel with de la Tour. He disarms his foe, then allows him to retrieve his sword. After André wounds the nobleman, de la Tour gives up.
When news reaches Paris that the Austrians and Prussians have invaded France in support of the beleaguered King Louis XVI, the French Revolution erupts. In the fighting, de la Tour is overwhelmed and left for dead. When he revives, he staggers to the residence of the countess. André goes there too to rescue his love and his mother the countess (whose identity has been revealed to him by de Kercadiou), armed with a passport signed by Danton authorizing him to do anything he wants. When the two bitter enemies spot each other, de la Tour demands the passport. André refuses, and de la Tour draws a pistol. When the countess reveals that he is in fact André's father, the two men have an initially uneasy reconciliation. When de la Tour starts to leave, André offers him his sword. Thus armed, de la Tour faces the rioters in the street and perishes.
André places the two women in a covered carriage. At the Paris gate, a man spots the aristocrats inside and demands they be handed to the mob. Moreau pleads with them to let them go for his sake. The masses respond with extravagant sentimentality, and the trio are allowed to leave Paris.
Scaramouche was an elaborate and unwieldy production that suffered from delays and cost overruns.[3] Ingram had secured the rights to Sabatini's novel in September 1922 and worked on the project for seven months before the cameras rolled. Extensive outdoor sets, representing 18th-century Paris, were built both on the Metro lot and at a separate site in the San Fernando Valley, and 1,500 extras were used.[4] An experimental sequence was shot in Technicolor, and the Technicolor company paid for the expense of this experiment; the sequence proved unsatisfactory, and it was discarded.[5]
Release
Scaramouche was given a prestigious 22-unit roadshow release upon its completion in 1924. The film was financially successful in the United States and broke box-office records in Paris and London.[6]
Rex Ingram was an Irish film director, producer, writer, and actor. Director Erich von Stroheim once called him "the world's greatest director".
Alfred Binet, born Alfredo Binetti, was a French psychologist who invented the first practical IQ test, the Binet–Simon test. In 1904, the French Ministry of Education asked psychologist Alfred Binet to devise a method that would determine which students did not learn effectively from regular classroom instruction so they could be given remedial work. Along with his collaborator Théodore Simon, Binet published revisions of his test in 1908 and 1911, the last of which appeared just before his death.
Georges Jacques Danton was a leading figure in the French Revolution. A modest and unknown lawyer on the eve of the Revolution, Danton became a famous orator of the Cordeliers Club and was raised to governmental responsibilities as the French Minister of Justice following the fall of the monarchy on the tenth of August 1792, and was allegedly responsible for inciting the September Massacres. He was tasked by the National Convention to intervene in the military conquest of Belgium led by French General Dumouriez. And in the Spring of 1793, he supported the foundation of a Revolutionary Tribunal and became the first president of the Committee of Public Safety.
Marie Louise Lévêque de Vilmorin was a French novelist, poet and journalist. Vilmorin was best known as a writer of delicate but mordant tales, often set in aristocratic or artistic milieu.
Scaramouche is a historical novel by Rafael Sabatini, originally published in 1921. A romantic adventure, Scaramouche tells the story of a young lawyer during the French Revolution. In the course of his adventures, he becomes an actor portraying Scaramouche. He also becomes a revolutionary, politician, and fencing-master, confounding his enemies with his powerful orations and swordsmanship. He is forced by circumstances to change sides several times. The book also depicts his transformation from cynic to idealist.
Isaac René Guy Le Chapelier was a French jurist and politician of the Revolutionary period.
José Ramón Gil Samaniego, known professionally as Ramon Novarro, was a Mexican-American actor. He began his career in silent films in 1917 and eventually became a leading man and one of the top box-office attractions of the 1920s and early 1930s. Novarro was promoted by MGM as a "Latin lover" and became known as a sex symbol after the death of Rudolph Valentino. He is recognized as the first Latin American actor to succeed in Hollywood.
Félix Vicq d'Azyr was a French physician and anatomist, the originator of comparative anatomy and discoverer of the theory of homology in biology.
Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles was a French judge, freemason and politician who took part in the French Revolution.
Scaramouche is a 1952 romantic swashbuckler film starring Stewart Granger, Eleanor Parker, Janet Leigh, and Mel Ferrer. Filmed in Technicolor, the MGM production is loosely based on the 1921 novel Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini as well as the 1923 film version starring Ramon Novarro. It was directed by George Sidney and produced by Carey Wilson from a screenplay by Ronald Millar and George Froeschel. The original music score was composed by Victor Young and the cinematography by Charles Rosher.
The Earrings of Madame de... is a 1953 romantic drama film directed by Max Ophüls from a screenplay he co-wrote with Marcel Achard and Annette Wademant, based on the 1951 novel Madame de... by Louise Lévêque de Vilmorin. The film is considered a masterpiece of 1950s French cinema. Andrew Sarris called it "the most perfect film ever made". Ophüls said the story's construction attracted him, stating "there is always the same axis around which the action continually turns like a carousel. A tiny, scarcely visible axis: a pair of earrings".
Call of the Flesh is a 1930 American Pre-Code musical film directed by Charles Brabin. The film stars Ramon Novarro, Dorothy Jordan, and Renée Adorée. It featured several songs performed by Novarro and originally included a sequence photographed in Technicolor.
Jean Pierre de Batz, Baron de Sainte-Croix, known as the Baron de Batz or de Bance,, was a French royalist and businessman. He was born in Goutz-les-Tartas (Gers), and died in Chadieu, near Vic-le-Comte (Puy-de-Dôme).
The Prisoner of Zenda is a 1922 American silent adventure film directed by Rex Ingram, one of the many adaptations of Anthony Hope's popular 1894 novel The Prisoner of Zenda and the subsequent 1896 play by Hope and Edward Rose.
Pierre-Philippe-André Levêque de Vilmorin, more commonly known as Philippe André de Vilmorin, was a notable French horticulturist.
Joseph-Marie-Philippe Lévêque de Vilmorin, generally known as Philippe de Vilmorin, was a noted French botanist and plant collector, and a member of the celebrated Vilmorin family of horticulturists.
Trifling Women is a 1922 American silent romantic drama film directed by Rex Ingram. It is credited with boosting the careers of its leads, Barbara La Marr and Ramon Novarro. It has been described as Ingram's most personal film.
Hégésippe Moreau was a French lyric poet. From birth, he was called by the last name of his biological father (Moreau) and took on the pseudonym Hégésippe when he first began publishing poetry in 1829. In the imagination of the French romantics and the 19th century public, the difficulties of Hégésippe Moreau's life and his untimely death made him a romantic equivalent of the earlier poets Thomas Chatterton, Nicolas Joseph Laurent Gilbert and Jacques Clinchamps de Malfilâtre. This romantic myth was solidified by the publication of his complete works, together with the works of Gilbert and a list of poets who died of hunger, in 1856; the 1860 edition of his works included an important biographical preface by Sainte-Beuve.
Vivienne Osborne was an American stage and film actress known for her work in Broadway theatre and in silent and sound films.
Antoinette Gabrielle Danton (née Charpentier; was the first wife of the French Revolutionary leader Georges Jacques Danton.
References
↑ rentals in US and Canada - see Variety list of box office champions for 1923
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